Do you frequently feel put-upon, upset or annoyed at work? Setting and defending personal boundaries, a concept drawn from psychology, can help defuse conflicts and create a more efficient, productive workplace.

Boundaries are “imaginary lines that protect you and your goals and interests from others,” says Lisa Martin, a talent maximization consultant based in Vancouver, British Columbia. A person must define and respect his or her own boundaries in order to prevent a colleague from breaching them.

Demeaning talk, rude interruptions, chronic tardiness, stealing credit and unfair or unreasonable expectations can all test a person’s boundaries. To avoid confrontation, it’s important to communicate your boundaries to colleagues.

Not in the heat of the moment, though. “Your tone of voice should be similar to how you sound when commenting on the weather: calm, non-confrontational and confident,” she says.

She recommends a seven-step process, pegged to the acronym RESPECT.

Recognize that your boundaries are being pushed, and stop others with a simple “Excuse me” as they start to cross that line.

Educate others that they are violating your boundary: “Do you realize you are yelling at me?” Boundary crossers seldom realize what they’re doing and will retreat if told.

Stop. If a violation persists, ask others to knock it off: “I’d like you to stop yelling at me.”

If others are not cooperative, carry on with the last two steps. In most cases, though, people change their behavior after step two, Martin says.

Command that others stop: “I insist that you stop yelling at me.”

Take off. Call it quits and leave the situation when you can’t bring others in line: “I can’t have this conversation while you’re yelling at me. I’m going to leave the room. Let’s talk about this when we’re not so upset.”

It’s easy to handle small trespasses. However, boundary pushing that affects employees’ personal lives is a problem with no tidy solution. To a working parent, a teacher conference or school play might be sacrosanct but the boss might see things differently.

“Work-life balance, in general, is not being honored at all any more” says Brandon Smith, senior lecturer, management communication, Emory University, Atlanta.

Moreover, “Help is not coming,” he adds. Following recession and layoffs, “Survivors thought if they just stuck it out and did the extra work, the economy would improve and people would be hired. But now there’s the sense that employers are going to see how long they can milk people.

“I don’t see the situation for overworked employees changing anytime soon until companies start seeing a lot of voluntary turnover.”

Short of quitting, an employee who feels a boss oversteps should schedule a conversation. “Find out exactly what is expected of you and, more importantly, what’s expected of your boss,” Smith suggests.

Gaining insights into the boss’s pressures enables his or her team members to come up with ways to alleviate them and helps them prioritize their own work in light of big-picture expectations, perhaps leading to improved efficiency and fewer hours on the clock.

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